DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Response to amendment
2. This is a Non-Final Office action in response to applicant's remarks/arguments filed on January 7, 2026.
3. Status of the claims:
• Claims 1, 3-7 and 16 have been amended.
• Claims 2 and 17 have been canceled.
• Claims 1, 3-16, and 18 are currently pending and have been examined.
Response to remarks/arguments
4. Applicant’s remarks and arguments filed on January 7, 2026 with respect to the rejection of claims 1, 3-16, and 18 have been fully considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection. Upon further search and consideration, a new ground(s) of obviousness rejection is made in view of Takeda et al. (US 20150296487 A1).
5. In response to Applicant’s remarks and arguments filed on January 7, 2026 regarding amended independent claims 1, 16, and 18, the Examiner acknowledges that the cited reference of Cirik does not appear to explicitly teach the newly recited features as argued by Applicant. However, the system of Takeda et al. (US 20150296487 A1) cures this deficiency.
Please see the rejection below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
6. In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
7. The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
8. The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
9. This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
10. Claims 1, 3-14, 16, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Takeda et al. (US 20150296487 A1) in view of Cirik et al. (US 20240089765 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Takeda discloses a method for handling radio link monitoring (RLM) of a communication apparatus (FIG. 4), comprising: receiving downlink (DL) data from a network device (Takeda, para. 26: receiving PDCCH from a base station); receiving a reference signal (RS) from the network device (Takeda, para. 48: receiving CSI-RS from the base station); performing a first measurement according to the DL data (Takeda, para. 111: performing a measurement based on the received PDCCH), to generate a first measurement result of the DL data (Takeda, para. 114: The enhanced PDCCH demodulation section 406 performs blind decoding, demodulation, channel decoding and so on of the downlink control information (DCI) output from the demapping section 403, based on the result of channel estimation in the channel estimation section); comparing the first measurement result and a first threshold and comparing the second measurement result and a third threshold, to determine a first indication (Takeda, para. 79, 118, 119: the received quality of downlink reference signals is compared against conventional thresholds (first criteria) in the subframes (0) for monitoring the UE-specific SSs of the PDCCH, and the received quality of downlink reference signals is compared against one or both of conventional thresholds (first criteria) and thresholds that support the new radio resource structure (second criteria) in the subframes (1) for monitor the UE-specific SSs of the enhanced PDCCH. See also, channel estimation section 408, received quality measurement section 409, paras. 116, 117); comparing the first measurement result and a second threshold and comparing the second measurement result and a fourth threshold, to determine a second indication (Takeda, para. 79, 118, 119: compares the received quality of downlink reference signals against thresholds Q.sub.out PDCCH and Q.sub.in PDCCH (first criteria) and thresholds Q.sub.out EPDCCH and Q.sub.in EPDCCH (second criteria). When the fifth example is employed, the criteria to use in the comparison are switched based on report from the radio base station 10. To be more specific, in subframes to monitor the UE-specific SSs of the PDCCH, the received quality of downlink reference signals is compared against the thresholds Q.sub.out PDCCH and Q.sub.in PDCCH (first criteria). In subframes to monitor the UE-specific SSs of the enhanced PDCCH, the received quality of downlink reference signals is compared against one or both of the first criteria and the second criteria. See also, channel estimation section 408, received quality measurement section 409, paras. 116, 117); and determining whether a radio link failure (RLF) occurs according to at least one of the first indication and the second indication (Takeda, para. 40: determining radio link failure (RLF) based on first criteria (which correspond to the thresholds Q.sub.out and Q.sub.in) and/or second criteria, which are different from the first criteria).
Takeda does not appear to explicitly disclose performing a second measurement according to the RS, to generate a second measurement result of the RS.
In the same field of endeavor, Cirik teaches performing a second measurement according to the RS (Takeda, para. 392: The wireless device may measure/assess, for the RLM of the cell, a second radio link quality of the second reference signal), to generate a second measurement result of the RS (Takeda, para. 146: generate a second CSI report based on the measuring of the one or more downlink CSI-RSs).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Takeda with the teaching of Cirik by using the above features such that performing a second measurement according to the reference signal (RS), to generate a second measurement result of the RS as taught by Cirik. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide radio coverage to the UEs over a wide geographic area to support UE mobility (para. [0058]).
Regarding claim 3, Takeda and Cirik disclose the method of claim 1, however, Cirik further teaches wherein the RS is configured by the network device via a radio resource control (RRC) message (Cirik, para. 148: The base station may configure the UE with a CSI-RS resource set and CSI reports using RRC signaling).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Takeda with the teaching of Cirik by using the above features such that the RS is configured by the network device via a radio resource control (RRC) message as taught by Cirik. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide radio coverage to the UEs over a wide geographic area to support UE mobility (para. [0058]).
Regarding claim 4, Takeda and Cirik disclose the method of claim 1, however, Cirik further teaches wherein the RS corresponds to an active transmission configuration indicator (TCI) for a control resource set (CORESET) (Cirik, abstract, para. 219-220: The wireless device may measure, for the RLM of the cell, a quality (e.g., BLER, L1-RSRP, L3-RSRP, SNR, SINR, RSRP) of a reference signal indicated by the TCI state of the coreset.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Takeda with the teaching of Cirik by using the above features such that the RS corresponds to an active transmission configuration indicator (TCI) for a control resource set (CORESET) as taught by Cirik. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide radio coverage to the UEs over a wide geographic area to support UE mobility (para. [0058]).
Regarding claim 5, Takeda and Cirik disclose the method of claim 1, however, Cirik further teaches wherein the RS comprises at least one of a synchronization signal/physical broadcast channel (SS/PBCH) block (SSB) and a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) (Cirik, para. 174: The UE may measure an RSRP of one or more reference signals (e.g., SSBs and/or CSI-RSs) and determine at least one reference signal having an RSRP above an RSRP threshold (e.g., rsrp-ThresholdSSB and/or rsrp-ThresholdCSI-RS)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Takeda with the teaching of Cirik by using the above features such that the RS comprises at least one of a synchronization signal/physical broadcast channel (SS/PBCH) block (SSB) and a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) as taught by Cirik. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide radio coverage to the UEs over a wide geographic area to support UE mobility (para. [0058]).
Regarding claim 6, Takeda and Cirik disclose the method of claim 1, wherein the second measurement result comprises a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the RS (Takeda, para. 33: a user terminal UE monitors downlink radio quality based on received quality, which may be the SIR (Signal-to-Interference Ratio) that is measured with downlink reference signals from the radio base station eNB).
Regarding claim 7, Takeda and Cirik disclose the method of claim 1, wherein the third threshold and the fourth threshold are predefined according to a communication standard (Cirik, para. 46: when an enhanced PDCCH is configured, RLFs are determined based on thresholds Q.sub.out EPDCCH and Q.sub.in EPDCCH that are suitable to monitor the quality of the enhanced PDCCH).
Regarding claim 8, Takeda and Cirik disclose the method of claim 1, however, Cirik further teaches wherein the operation of determining the RLF according to at least one of the first indication and the second indication comprises: starting a timer, when a first number of the first indication is equal to a first value (Cirik, para. 218: A timer may be associated with a value (e.g. the timer may be started or restarted from a value or may be started from zero and expire once it reaches the value)); determining that the RLF does not occur and stopping the timer, when a second number of the second indication is equal to a second value and the timer does not expire (Cirik, para. 225: the wireless device may not detect the RLF, when at least one of the at least two TCI states is not in failure (or have a good quality, higher RSRP, higher SNR, higher SINR, or lower BLER than a threshold)); and determining that the RLF occurs, when the timer expires (Cirik, para. 167: The UE may detect the beam failure based on a determination that a quality of beam pair link(s) of an associated control channel is unsatisfactory (e.g., having an error rate higher than an error rate threshold, a received signal power lower than a received signal power threshold, an expiration of a timer, and/or the like)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Takeda with the teaching of Cirik by using the above features such that starting a timer, when a first number of the first indication is equal to a first value; determining that the RLF does not occur and stopping the timer, when a second number of the second indication is equal to a second value and the timer does not expire and determining that the RLF occurs, when the timer expires as taught by Cirik. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide radio coverage to the UEs over a wide geographic area to support UE mobility (para. [0058]).
Regarding claim 9, Takeda and Cirik disclose the method of claim 8, however, Cirik further teaches wherein the first value and the second value are predefined according to a communication standard (Cirik, para. 127, 202, 217: the configuration parameters may comprise parameters indicating values of timers for physical, MAC, RLC, PCDP, SDAP, RRC layers, and/or communication channels. Moreover, Cirik further discloses if the total bit length of UCI information bits is greater than the first configured value and less than or equal to a second configured value, the UE may select a third PUCCH resource set having a PUCCH resource set index equal to “2”.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Takeda with the teaching of Cirik by using the above features such that the first value and the second value are predefined according to a communication standard as taught by Cirik. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide radio coverage to the UEs over a wide geographic area to support UE mobility (para. [0058]).
Regarding claim 10, Takeda and Cirik disclose the method of claim 1, wherein the DL data comprises at least one of a physical DL control channel (PDCCH) and a physical DL shared channel (PDSCH) (Takeda, para. 88, 104: show that the downlink (DL) data may comprise a PDCCH or/and a PDSCH).
Regarding claim 11, Takeda and Cirik disclose the method of claim 1, wherein the first measurement result comprises at least one of a SNR of the DL data, a reference symbol received power (RSRP) of the DL data, an error rate of the DL data and a throughput of the DL data (Takeda, para. 34, 42, 43: the PDCCH measurement result may comprise an error rate of the DL data).
Regarding claim 12, Takeda and Cirik disclose the method of claim 1, however, Cirik further teaches wherein the first threshold and the second threshold are determined according to at least one of a quasi co-location (QCL) status, a RLM mode for the RS and an application of the communication apparatus (Cirik, para. 143, 161, 168: The base station may indicate that an RS resource is quasi co-located (QCLed) with one or more DM-RSs of a channel (e.g., a control channel, a shared data channel, and/or the like). The RS resource and the one or more DMRSs of the channel may be QCLed when the channel characteristics (e.g., Doppler shift, Doppler spread, average delay, delay spread, spatial Rx parameter, fading, and/or the like) from a transmission via the RS resource to the UE are similar or the same as the channel characteristics from a transmission via the channel to the UE).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Takeda with the teaching of Cirik by using the above features such that the first threshold and the second threshold are determined according to at least one of a quasi co-location (QCL) status, a RLM mode for the RS and an application of the communication apparatus as taught by Cirik. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide radio coverage to the UEs over a wide geographic area to support UE mobility (para. [0058]).
Regarding claim 13, Takeda and Cirik disclose the method of claim 12, however, Cirik further teaches wherein the QCL status is determined according to at least one of a QCL difference and a beamforming gain difference (Cirik, para. 161, 233: the RS(s) may have QCL type(s) (e.g., QCL-TypeD). The first RS may have a QCL-TypeD. The second RS may have a QCL-TypeD. In an example, the wireless device may, for the link monitoring, use/select the first RS indicated by the first (active) TCI state and the second RS indicated by the second (active) TCI state).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Takeda with the teaching of Cirik by using the above features such that the QCL status is determined according to at least one of a QCL difference and a beamforming gain difference as taught by Cirik. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide radio coverage to the UEs over a wide geographic area to support UE mobility (para. [0058]).
Regarding claim 14, Takeda and Cirik disclose the method of claim 12, however, Cirik further teaches wherein the RLM mode comprises an explicit RLM mode and an implicit RLM mode (Cirik, para. 219, 223, 224, 229: a wireless device may perform radio link monitoring (RLM) of a cell based on a TCI state of a coreset. The TCI state of the coreset may correspond to a receiving beam of the wireless device. The wireless device may measure, for the RLM of the cell, a quality (e.g., BLER, L1-RSRP, L3-RSRP, SNR, SINR, RSRP) of a reference signal indicated by the TCI state of the coreset).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Takeda with the teaching of Cirik by using the above features such that the RLM mode comprises an explicit RLM mode and an implicit RLM mode as taught by Cirik. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide radio coverage to the UEs over a wide geographic area to support UE mobility (para. [0058]).
Regarding claim 16, Takeda discloses a communication apparatus (FIG. 12: communication apparatus 20), comprising: a radio transceiver, configured to transmit or receive wireless signals (FIG. 12: Included a transceiver as needed to transmit or receive wireless signals); and a processing circuit (FIG. 12: Included a transceiver as needed), coupled to the radio transceiver and configured to perform operations comprising: receiving downlink (DL) data from a network device (Takeda, para. 26: receiving PDCCH from a base station); receiving a reference signal (RS) from the network device (Takeda, para. 48: receiving CSI-RS from the base station); performing a first measurement according to the DL data (Takeda, para. 111: performing a measurement based on the received PDCCH), to generate a first measurement result of the DL data (Takeda, para. 114: The enhanced PDCCH demodulation section 406 performs blind decoding, demodulation, channel decoding and so on of the downlink control information (DCI) output from the demapping section 403, based on the result of channel estimation in the channel estimation section); comparing the first measurement result and a first threshold and comparing the second measurement result and a third threshold, to determine a first indication (Takeda, para. 79, 118, 119: the received quality of downlink reference signals is compared against conventional thresholds (first criteria) in the subframes (0) for monitoring the UE-specific SSs of the PDCCH, and the received quality of downlink reference signals is compared against one or both of conventional thresholds (first criteria) and thresholds that support the new radio resource structure (second criteria) in the subframes (1) for monitor the UE-specific SSs of the enhanced PDCCH. See also, channel estimation section 408, received quality measurement section 409, paras. 116, 117); comparing the first measurement result and a second threshold and comparing the second measurement result and a fourth threshold, to determine a second indication (Takeda, para. 79, 118, 119: compares the received quality of downlink reference signals against thresholds Q.sub.out PDCCH and Q.sub.in PDCCH (first criteria) and thresholds Q.sub.out EPDCCH and Q.sub.in EPDCCH (second criteria). When the fifth example is employed, the criteria to use in the comparison are switched based on report from the radio base station 10. To be more specific, in subframes to monitor the UE-specific SSs of the PDCCH, the received quality of downlink reference signals is compared against the thresholds Q.sub.out PDCCH and Q.sub.in PDCCH (first criteria). In subframes to monitor the UE-specific SSs of the enhanced PDCCH, the received quality of downlink reference signals is compared against one or both of the first criteria and the second criteria. See also, channel estimation section 408, received quality measurement section 409, paras. 116, 117); and determining whether a radio link failure (RLF) occurs according to at least one of the first indication and the second indication (Takeda, para. 40: determining radio link failure (RLF) based on first criteria (which correspond to the thresholds Q.sub.out and Q.sub.in) and/or second criteria, which are different from the first criteria).
Takeda does not appear to explicitly disclose performing a second measurement according to the RS, to generate a second measurement result of the RS.
In the same field of endeavor, Cirik teaches performing a second measurement according to the RS (Takeda, para. 392: The wireless device may measure/assess, for the RLM of the cell, a second radio link quality of the second reference signal), to generate a second measurement result of the RS (Takeda, para. 146: generate a second CSI report based on the measuring of the one or more downlink CSI-RSs).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Takeda with the teaching of Cirik by using the above features such that performing a second measurement according to the reference signal (RS), to generate a second measurement result of the RS as taught by Cirik. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide radio coverage to the UEs over a wide geographic area to support UE mobility (para. [0058]).
Regarding claim 18, Takeda and Cirik disclose the communication apparatus of claim 16, however, Cirik further teaches wherein the operation of determining the RLF according to at least one of the first indication and the second indication comprises: starting a timer, when a first number of the first indication is equal to a first value (Cirik, para. 218: A timer may be associated with a value (e.g. the timer may be started or restarted from a value or may be started from zero and expire once it reaches the value)); determining that the RLF does not occur and stopping the timer, when a second number of the second indication is equal to a second value and the timer does not expire (Cirik, para. 225: the wireless device may not detect the RLF, when at least one of the at least two TCI states is not in failure (or have a good quality, higher RSRP, higher SNR, higher SINR, or lower BLER than a threshold)); and determining that the RLF occurs, when the timer expires (Cirik, para. 167: The UE may detect the beam failure based on a determination that a quality of beam pair link(s) of an associated control channel is unsatisfactory (e.g., having an error rate higher than an error rate threshold, a received signal power lower than a received signal power threshold, an expiration of a timer, and/or the like)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Takeda with the teaching of Cirik by using the above features such that starting a timer, when a first number of the first indication is equal to a first value; determining that the RLF does not occur and stopping the timer, when a second number of the second indication is equal to a second value and the timer does not expire and determining that the RLF occurs, when the timer expires as taught by Cirik. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide radio coverage to the UEs over a wide geographic area to support UE mobility (para. [0058]).
11. Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Takeda et al. (US 20150296487 A1) and Cirik et al. (US 20240089765 A1) in view of YE et al. (US 20220015150 A1).
Regarding claim 15, Takeda and Cirik disclose the method of claim 12, but the references fail to teach wherein the application of the communication apparatus comprises an enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), an Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC) and an enhanced Machine Type Communications (eMTC).
In the same field of endeavor, YE discloses wherein the application of the communication apparatus comprises an enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), an Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC) and an enhanced Machine Type Communications (eMTC) (YE, para. 4: shows that the application of the communication comprises an enhanced Machine Type Communications (eMTC)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Takeda and Cirik with the teaching of YE by using the above features such as the application of the communication comprises an enhanced Machine Type Communications as taught by YE. The motivation for doing so would have been to support the quality report in Msg3 for enhanced Machine Type Communication (eMTC) (para. [0027]).
Conclusion
12. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JEAN F VOLTAIRE whose telephone number is (571)272-3953. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:30-6:30 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, REBECCA E. SONG can be reached at (571)270-3667. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JEAN F VOLTAIRE/Examiner, Art Unit 2417
/PAUL H. MASUR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2417
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